Training
Perimeter’s PhD students receive exceptional graduate-level training in theoretical physics, working with some of the world’s most accomplished researchers, interacting with Perimeter’s many annual visitors, and participating in courses, conferences, seminars, and professional development activities that prepare them to be future leaders in academia or industry. Resident PhD students receive their degree from a partner university where their supervisor has a full or adjunct appointment. This year, these partner universities were McMaster University, University of Guelph, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Western University, and York University.
Many students from the Perimeter Scholars International (PSI) program continue in physics through a PhD at Perimeter. In 2023/24, 47 percent of Perimeter’s PhD students were PSI graduates.
Of the 17 students who completed their PhDs in 2023/24, many went on to prestigious postdoctoral fellowships, including Ramiro Cayuso at SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies) in Trieste, Italy, and Lei Gioia Yang at the California Institute of Technology in the US.
Perimeter had a total of 79 PhD students from 29 countries in 2023/24.
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PhD Students
Perimeter PhD students Jacqueline (Jackie) Caminiti, Caroline de Lima Vargas Simoes, and James Munday were among the future scientific leaders awarded the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships earlier this year. Administered by the Vanier-Banting Secretariat on behalf of Canada’s three granting agencies – the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – the Vanier scholarship supports Canada’s most promising scientists at the beginning of their careers. All three of Perimeter’s awardees are also alumni of PSI, the Institute’s master’s program, run in partnership with the University of Waterloo.
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PhD students
Graduating PhD students Shayan Majidy and Shengqi Sang were co-awarded the 2024 Brodie Memorial Prize for their outstanding research programs during their time at Perimeter. John Brodie was one of the first postdoctoral researchers at Perimeter, and this award is dedicated to creativity shown in research.
Majidy’s research focuses on quantum information science and quantum thermodynamics, and his work has bridged gaps between theoretical modelling and experimental tests. During his time as a PhD student, Majidy wrote eight first-author papers and co-authored a forthcoming textbook on building quantum computers. Majidy is also a passionate science communicator and received a teaching certificate while completing his PhD. He completed his PhD in 2024 as a student at Perimeter and the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, supervised by Perimeter Research Associate Faculty member Raymond Laflamme. In fall 2024, he began a Banting Fellowship at Harvard University.
Sang’s research focuses on quantum matter and formulating new descriptions of open quantum systems. Sang’s thesis work opened original and creative new areas of research in mixed state phases of matter and connections to renormalization and quantum error correction. He completed his PhD in 2024 as a student at Perimeter and the University of Waterloo, supervised by Research Faculty member and Director of the Clay Riddell Centre for Quantum Matter Timothy Hsieh. In fall 2024, he began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics in the US.
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PhD Students
Perimeter PhD students José de Jesús Padua Argüelles and Zheng Zhou were co-awarded this year’s Peter and Shelagh Godsoe Family Foundation Award for Exceptional Emerging Talent. The award was established in 2014 to support the training of early-year graduate students at Perimeter doing outstanding research.
Argüelles’s research focuses on new formulations of quantum gravity and Lorentzian path integrals. He is supervised by Faculty Chair Bianca Dittrich and is currently in the third year of his PhD.
Zhou’s research focuses on theories of quantum matter, including 3D conformal field theories and newly-pioneered “fuzzy sphere regularization,” originally described by his PhD supervisor, Perimeter Research Faculty member Yin-Chen He. Zhou is currently in the second year of his PhD.
Perimeter further strengthens connections with partner universities across Ontario and Canada through its associate postdoctoral and associate graduate student programs. Early-career researchers from partner universities are encouraged, through formal appointments as associate trainees, to participate in the full range of activities at Perimeter including attending seminars, participating in conferences, and collaborating with Perimeter’s world-class faculty. During 2023/24, the program welcomed 20 associate postdocs, 34 associate PhD students, and 13 associate master’s students, based at a range of partner institutions: McMaster University, Queen’s University, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, and Western University.
